If they tracked it
like bloodhounds
sniff out a body,
dying, living, shitting,
it’s left on couches,
pillows, shoes, socks,
on women’s bodies.

A confluence of soul
longing, obsessing
until I can’t stand myself,
take a shower.

I sniff my finger
after rooting in my ear
for a sound, a word
turned to a waxy cartouche.

All the dirty words,
dirty loves, dirty lies,
dirty suspicions
distilled into liquor
in the dark hole
of my head,
in the pigsty
I come from.

It’s lost any meaning.
Smelling the intoxicating
filth one last time,
I cry. I laugh.

There's an inventive syntax in this poem, an attention to the way sentences make unexpected rhythms. And I love the dark humor, the simultaneously seductive and queasy sense of smell on the air: "ubiquitous, delirious." --Paul Lisicky

October 2018 Winners

First Place

The Emails Go Unanswered
by Lois P. JonesPenShells

Second Place

Hidden Room
by F.H. LeeThe Write Idea

Third Place

The Penitent
by Ken AshworthThe Writer's Block

Honorable Mention

You Can Call Me a Tough Cookie, But It Really Doesn’t Matter
by Midnight MoonWild Poetry Forum